Far From Ordinary

by M James Murray

  Dimitri, on the other hand, was right at home. More than that, he had already found a drink and a college student slash waitress who was more than happy to flirt with him for extra tips.

  “Hey!” a man stuck out a meaty forearm and blocked Dick’ path “Nobody gets to look for free. Pay up.” Dick looked up at the man. There was a sheen of sweat on the top of his bald head and tattoos all over his arms. He looked like a weightlifter who had taken one too many steroids back in the day.

  “Oh, I’m just here for him.” Dick motioned towards Dimitri, who was taking a shot glass from the waitress’ ample bosom with his teeth. “How did he get that so quickly?” He muttered under his breath.

  “Okay, no problem! $60”

  “I’ll literally only be thirty seconds.”

  “Well, then it’s two dollars a second.”

  Dick considered arguing the point further, but he felt that the subtle nuances of his argument to get to Dimitri would be ignored by the bouncer, who looked like he had gotten low D’s in his first and only year of high school.

  “Twenty?” Dick asked, not optimistic about his chances of entry.

  “Twenty-five. If you take more than 5 minutes…”

  Dick didn’t need for him to finish the thought to know that it was serious trouble for him if he overstayed his welcome.

  “Dimitri!” He yelled through the loud music. He could see Dimitri notice him and turn to the waitress.

  “Brandy Champagne, this is dumbass I vas telling you about.” Brandy Champagne stroked Dimitri’s bald head in a gesture so loving that it could only have been brought on by money.

  “I’m not…”

  “No matter! Brandy!” A shot of clear alcohol appeared in Dick’s hands. Cheap vodka, Dick figured. It smelled like his father. He’d never met his dad, but his Mama had told him that the man was a raging alcoholic.

  “Drink!” said Brandy Champagne. Dick did not want to drink, but the stripper locked eyes with him, pushed the drink to his lips. He took a deep swallow and coughed immediately, the strong alcohol inducing a gag reflex as it traced a path from his lips to his belly. “Another!”

  “No, I’m actually” – another shot appeared in Dick’s hands. Dick drank it again by reflex and this time he almost vomited all over the cheap carpet. The liquid burned all the way down to his stomach, where it gurgled.

  How can people drink stuff like this?

  “Why are we here?” Dick said.

  “We khave alcohol and vomen! Vhat else vould you need?”

  “A car!”

  “Automobile outside! Strip club perfect alibi! First, we drink.”

  “I don,” Dick hiccupped, “don’t know how much more I should drink. And the big man isn’t gonna be nice if I stay.” He said. Already he felt light-headed, and his stomach felt upset. He could hear it gurgling even over the music of the club.

  “One drink! Brandy talk to Big Rick for you!”

  Dick felt relieved as he saw Brandy Champagne scurry across the bar, but he was worried about the mission. Adrian had sent him to keep an eye on Dimitri and he had done everything but that.

  Friends didn’t let each other down. But he had. Adrian would be so disappointed.

  Suddenly a girl called out from across the club.

  “Dick!”

  “Huh?” Dick looked around. Running across the club in seven-inch stiletto’s was Delilah, her blonde wig fluttering beautifully in the trail of the smoke machine that the club had put in.

  The matching lingerie set she wore took his breath away. Dick had to admit that she looked good, even better than usual.

  “What are you doing here? Come on!” She dragged him by the hand towards the performer’s only entrance.

  “Hey! You can’t go back there!” Big Rick barreled his way from the front of the club.

  How is he always everywhere at once?

  “It’s fine sugar, he’s with me.” Big Rick didn’t look very happy, but he let them through.

  Inside was a dirty room with clothes strewn everywhere which reminded Dick of his own small bachelor pad apartment. There were a half a dozen mirrors on each side and six other strippers helping each other get undressed, or dressed.

  Dick’s jaw hit the floor.

  “Delilah, what the hell!” screamed a little brunette girl who was trying to get into a cheerleading outfit. She covered her perky breasts with her free hand and glowered at Delilah and Dick.

  “Shut up your whore mouth Cheryl or I will end you! I just need a minute.” Delilah screamed before turning back to Dick. “Sorry about that.”

  “Work friend?” Dick said. He hoped that his stomach would get over the conniptions he was feeling soon.

  “Besties.” She smiled a perfect little angelic smile for a brief moment, before turning serious. “Dick, what’s happening with you, sugar? I was worried sick!

  This morning every cop in the city was at your apartment. They was lookin’ for you. What did you do? They questioned me. I said I knew nothing but they didn’t believe me!”

  Delilah looked genuinely upset. Dick was touched that someone cared so deeply about it. He felt a sad twinge in his soul that he had made someone worry about him.

  Dick thought for a moment. He was right not to go home, he realized. Whoever Browne and Nieminen worked for clearly had some powerful connections.

  Dick considered telling her the whole story, but he wasn’t sure that they had the time to spare. Plus, he reckoned, you always appear sexier if you’re mysterious.

  “I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die.” It probably would have sounded more dramatic if he hadn’t hiccupped in the middle of his sentence.

  “Oh my god Dick, what the hell’r you thinkin’!” She smacked him first across the arm, and then across the face. Hard.

  Dick was perplexed. He hadn’t been expecting anger from Delilah although, upon thinking a little bit harder about it, Dick realized that he wasn’t sure what he was expecting at all.

  “I’m kidding! Kidding! Stop!” She gave him two more whacks just for the hell of it.

  “You’re not doing freaky shit in that apartment, are you? Paying people to watch you masturbate, you sicko?”

  “Delilah, it’s nothing like that! I wish I could tell you, but I don’t have enough time! I just was at the wrong place at the wrong time, you have to believe me!” In his passion, he grabbed her by the shoulders.

  He could feel the electricity between them like the feeling before a big thunderstorm, the type that shakes the foundations of your home when it hits. “I don’t want to be here, but I have to so I can come home.

  I want to be home. With you. That’s where I want to be.”

  “Well then what are you going to do?” She breathed, her shiny lips parted.

  Before Dick knew what he was doing, he was kissing her on the lips. Hard, soul-sucking kisses that tingle the back of your neck and make you forget who you are.

  It was Richard Mitey’s first real kiss. And it felt good.

  “Oh my, Dick,” The stripper said lustily.

  “You gonna charge him for that or what,” Cheryl called from the corner. Delilah ignored her.

  Nothing seemed to matter to Dick at that moment except the feeling of her soft lips on his.

  “You can’t stay, can you?” She murmured dreamily, sensually.

  “Not for long.”

  “Well then, let’s find out why they call you Dick Mitey.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “The Champagne Room.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Delilah pulled back the heavy velvet curtains from the entrance to the Champagne Room and lounged across the bed, tucking her curly blonde wig hair behind her ear. Her sheer red thong panties matched the red brassiere which she seductively removed and tossed at Dick.

  “Pull the curtains, sugar. Give us some privacy.” Dick drew the curtains across and felt their weight in his hands. He was nervous and excited at the same time, and his hands shook with a
nticipation.

  It was sticky humid inside the club, and Dick could feel beads of sweat dripping down his back. He finished with the curtain and turned around, soaking in every last inch of Delilah with his eyes.

  She looked beautiful. Dick could see the scars on her stomach from her latest tummy tuck, and he wanted to run his fingers over them, kiss them.

  She was real in a way that Dick had never expected to have in person. She was a real, breathing person and she wanted him.

  Her heavy, drooping, bell-shaped breasts were absolutely divine in the dimly lit club. She saw Dick lookin’ and grabbed them with her hands. Massaging them, tweaking her nipples so that they stood erect. The noises which she made while she played with her weighty breasts were delightful, little squeals of pleasure which seemed to consume her entire body.

  He felt sweaty. His palms were clammy, and he had a weird metallic taste in his mouth from the vodka. Dick had never felt the awkwardness of his body so acutely until that moment. Dick noted his lanky arms, his slight frame when he saw her eyes take in his body.

  Just relax, he told himself. Truthfully Dick had given up on ever having sex with anyone. He had tried online dating a few years ago with disastrous results. From that point, he had steeled himself to the possibility of being alone.

  But now… he walked over awkwardly when Delilah beckoned with a finger, feeling his shoes stick against the carpet with every step. He wondered if that was how he always walked, or if he was walking strangely. Did she notice that he was walking strangely?

  He sat down on the bed beside her, wondering where he should put his hands. Delilah kissed his neck softly with her collagen-infused lips, and it felt delightful, as though he could feel every electric current in the world going through his body. He could even feel it in his toes.

  She leaned over and took his shirt off, running her fingers up and down Dick’ thin chest and stomach.

  “Oh my,” she said, feeling Dick’ almost sunken chest. “There ain’t a hair on your body! It’s beautiful, sugar.”

  Dick had always been insecure about the lack of muscle on his chest, but Delilah didn’t seem to mind. She worked through his body with the consummate precision of a professional, running her fingers through his coarse brown hair, up his thighs. She scratched down his back with her nails and Dick gasped in pleasure.

  Isn’t it supposed to hurt when someone scratches you?

  “I’m nervous,” Dick finally admitted. He was also incredibly aroused – his heart was beating faster at that moment than it ever had before.

  “Here, sugar,” Delilah said, “Come lay next to me.” So, he did. Dick lay down on that heart shaped bed and let Delilah guide him.

  Dick gasped in pleasure. No wonder that people loved this so much, he thought. Her kisses were so soft that they came from the mouths of angels.

  He discovered her body with an almost child-like fixation, loving every sound that escaped her lips. The entire experience was so sensual, so intoxicating, like he was floating outside his body, losing touch with reality. Dick never wanted it to end.

  “I’m ready, sugar,” Delilah moaned.

  “I’m ready,” Dick gasped.

  “Good, sugar,” She said sensually, “now c’mere.”

  #

  “Well, you don’t have to laugh,” Dick said, putting on his pants, zipping them up and pulling back the thick purple velvet curtain from the heart-shaped bed. “That’s just rude.”

  “But… but…” Delilah gasped. “You’re not Mighty at all, sugar!” Tears of laughter were streaming down her face. “Ricky! Come here a second.” She sat up in the bed and lit up a Marlboro lite, exposing her ample, sagging bell-shaped breasts with the big dark areolas.

  Those same breasts that before were giving him so much pleasure now seemed overly large and misshapen. They seemed to stare at Dick slightly cross-eyed. He averted his gaze to the floor.

  She could be cruel, he knew, from those midnight encounters she had with strangers in her apartment. Dick remembered the screaming matches he’d overheard. He had always assumed that the other person had done something wrong, to make her upset.

  He’d been wrong. Dick’s stomach was gurgling dangerously. The cheap vodka had upset it.

  Big Rick never entered a room. He lumbered in, turning sideways so his broad shoulders fit through the door frame, pulling the purple velvet curtain so hard it nearly broke off the track.

  “What’s up doll? This one giving you trouble?” He rumbled in his deep baritone, eyeing Dick with beady eyes.

  “No… he just…” Delilah chortled as tears streamed down her face. “He just… Tell Ricky your name.”

  Dick’ ears were red with embarrassment. He tossed on the black graphic tee that he had borrowed from Dimitri which had the text “Your Problem Is Obvious” with the design of a man with his head squarely up his rectum which he had been wearing since he woke up from the crash.

  He tried to shoulder past Big Rick, but the big man shoved him back as though he weighed nothing.

  “Lady asked you a question you walking mushroom.” He growled.

  “Dick. My name is Dick, okay?”

  “So what,” Big Ricky grumbled. Dick felt his stomach turn over and it was all he could do to not puke on the annoyed bouncer.

  “Wait, there’s more!” Delilah shouted with her southern twang from the heart-shaped bed. “His last name is Mitey! And he’s got a little nubbin for a cock!” She started howling with laughter again. “I was… I was like: is it in yet? And he goes… he goes… He said: I’m finished! It was this big.”

  Delilah held up her fingers to show Big Rick just how mighty Dick’s penis was. It wasn’t very generous.

  Big Rick started laughing, a deep baritone laugh that doubled him over. Dick’s ears burned shades of deep crimson.

  Admittedly he hadn’t quite mastered the art of sex yet, but he thought that he hadn’t done half bad for his first time.

  “Dick Mitey, the half-minute little mushroom man!” He said. “Hey Charlene, get in here!”

  Dick looked for some way out. Big Rick was at the only door, and he wasn’t about to let Dick go and spoil their fun.

  Anger and embarrassment marred Dick’s face. He who had lived through more playground taunts than he could remember, who had consistently been beaten up as a child because of his unique name and had taken it all with a smile.

  Finally, his stomach had enough. Dick hurled out the cheap booze which Dimitri had fed him before, coughing and spitting. His face was the same color as the cheap pleather seats.

  “Eww!” Charlene screamed. Dick glanced up; he had vomited all over her shoes. Big Ricky was looking like he was about to throttle him with those meaty hands.

  Dick slunk into one of the corners, feeling the velvet warm against his back and put his hands in his face, hoping they’d all go away.

  Their laughter echoed in Dick’s head for a very long time afterward. People, even people who appear to be close friends, can be very, very cruel sometimes.

  He had wanted his first time to be unique, to be unforgettable. He had achieved one of those things. At the very least he’d never forget this night.

  Not ever.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Dick found Dimitri sitting in a dirty corner on that questionably stained pleather furniture with Brandy Champagne, the stripper.

  “Hello darling,” she moaned as he walked up. She had her bum squarely in Dimitri’s face and, from the looks of it, Dimitri was enjoying it immensely. He looked like a man as close to heaven as you can get.

  Brandy Champagne, on the other hand, looked bored, her face impassive and bland.

  She removed her skimpy top that didn’t cover much anyways and tossed it towards Dick, who caught it absentmindedly.

  It occurred to Dick that he had seen many breasts tonight and that they were much more enjoyable in person than over a video or a picture. But he remembered the Champagne room; he could still hear their sharp ringing laughter in hi
s head, which turned his ears red flush with embarrassment.

  His mouth still tasted like vomit, no matter how many times he spat on that cheap, sticky carpet.

  He had been accommodating long enough. He had gone along with Dimitri’s ideas, even though they were bad ones. Finally, Dick had lost his patience. He rubbed the back of his head where the sutures were. They felt angry, too.